Danger of Bikes and Motorcycles on the Roads

Yay, a sensible, positive editorial from the Advocate staff. I like to think my enraged response to the recent, less well thought-out editorial on school closings had something to do with this.

Pursuit of lower mpg has dangers 6/25/08
In congested Fairfield County, the concept of "sharing the road" isn't exactly a foreign one. But if gasoline prices remain where they are or climb even higher, the nature of who's doing the sharing will evolve - a process that has already begun.

There are more motorcycles and two-wheeled scooters on our roads now that [sic] ever before, which means all drivers, those sitting atop four wheels and those on two, will need to take more care out there.

Drivers of cars and, especially, SUVs, which have poorer sight lines, need to keep a particular eye out for bike and scooter riders. For obvious reasons, they are harder to see, and much more likely to get caught in blind spots. Not only could that produce a greater number of collisions, but more disastrous ones as well. A bump between two cars that would result in a bent fender can be a whole other beast if one of those vehicles is a motorcycle or scooter.

But traffic safety is a two-way street. Motorcycle and scooter riders need to be aware that they are the minority out there, and the ones in greatest danger. Strict adherence to traffic rules and hyper vigilance are called for - especially on the part of older bikers/scooter riders, who might not have much experience on the machines. A report in The Baltimore Sun several years ago found a sharp increase in fatalities among motorcycle riders ages 40 and older.

According to a story last Saturday by our reporter Chris Gosier, there currently are 87,588 motorcycles registered in Connecticut, up 40 percent from June 2003. That is a remarkable rise, if not very surprising. The lure of two-wheelers, both motorcycles and scooters, is obvious as local pumps inch toward $5 a gallon.

Greenwich psychotherapist Kevin Root told reporter Hoa Nguyen that his Toyota Highlander sits largely idle these days as he's out on his recently purchased Honda scooter, which he only has to fill up once every couple of weeks. Stamford resident Dominick Bria's Yamaha Vino gets more than 70 miles to the gallon. With gas prices being what they are, he could recoup the scooter's $3,000 price tag in less than a year.

But four-wheel and two-wheel motorists have often had an uneasy relationship. Many bike riders say car and truck drivers don't respect them as much as they do their four-wheel brethren. Car and truck drivers, on the other hand, complain about motorcyclists hot dogging it.

The truth is no one holds the deed on dangerous and, at times, downright foolish driving. Many of us need to improve on that count in general, regardless of with whom we're sharing the road. The fact that there will be more motorcycles and scooters out there just ups the urgency.

On that note, we defer to Fritz Blau, owner of Fritz's Harley-Davidson in Stamford, who recently took exception to the headline we had put on a story about this issue.

"Instead of ('Cars vs. cycles')," he wrote in a letter to the editor, "the article should have been titled 'Cars with cycles.' "

He's right. Cars with cycles is the situation now more than ever, and in all likelihood, it'll keep on growing. It's up to all of us to make sure that more road fatalities doesn't join the long list of consequences of the high gas prices.